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There Was A Crooked Man
:"There Was a Crooked Man" is an English nursery rhyme. :The rhyme was first recorded by James Orchard Halliwell in 1842: : ::There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile, ::''He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile; ::''He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, ::''And they all liv'd together in a little crooked house. :It gained popularity in the early twentieth century.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 340. Wikipedia and their sources, and seemingly all WASP historians, would have us believe that: :One legend suggests that this nursery rhyme originated in the once prosperous wool merchant’s village of Lavenham, about 70 miles northeast of London, having been inspired by its multicolored half-timbered houses leaning at irregular angles as if they are supporting each other. Ok, the House. But where the Man? And the rest? :Other sources state that the poem originates from British history, specifically the period of the English Stuart King Charles I of England (1600–1649). The crooked man is reputed to be the Scottish General Sir Alexander Leslie, who signed a covenant securing religious and political freedom for Scotland. The "crooked stile" in the poem was the border between England and Scotland. "They all lived together in a little crooked house" refers to the fact that the English and Scots had at last come to an agreement, despite continuing great animosity between the two peoples, who nonetheless had to live with each other due to their common border. The Man, the Stile, and a lame metaphor for a House. No Mile, no Sixpence, no Cat, no Mouse. The Crooked Man is a politician. We know that because of the House, the House of Conmen, duh. The Crooked Mile is somewhere in London, probably. Distance between the House of Commons and the financial district? Some law enforcement building? Bought a, doesn't really matter if they have a catlike nature. Probably law enforcement or military of some kind. Bought with a bribe. Perhaps actually bribed to bring proceedings against the Mouse, perhaps just in their pocket at the time of the bust. Only the next part is obscure. How does the Mouse live together with them? Perhaps this last part is as lame as the suggested metaphor. Or maybe it describes some unusual circumstance quite well. At any rate..hmm. Why does no historian grant these obvious conclusions a look? They don't want the truth. In which case, this is not only a folk song because it was fun to sing, but because it is a protest song. It was probably a fairly minor note in history, or its use might have been so suppressed that people could not speak of its subject. In popular culture Wikipedia:There Was a Crooked Man#In popular culture Another part of its popularity is its versatility. It can be applied to any crooks with one ally and one significant unfortunate enemy. References Category:Folk songs Category:Nursery rhymes Category: Political songs Category: Protest songs